


Stars Unearth Your Fires

by angel_gidget



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Gen, He also has suppressed rage, LOTS of yj references, Pre-New 52, Preboot, Tim Drake is Red Robin, Tim is a low key angst bunny, Tim's friends are good to him, eventual romance but gen for now, except when he's high key, mentions of Dick living up to his name, screw the nu52, which may get less surpressed as the story goes, yj references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-11 16:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10469451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_gidget/pseuds/angel_gidget
Summary: Tim Drake never thought of himself as a troublemaker as far as Robins go. But a passing accusation quickly escalates into a case of stolen memories, technologically backwards clues from his past self, interdimensional hijinks, reflections on the good old days, and possibly the rekindling of a foregone romance. Eventually Tim/??? Mystery ship!





	1. The Premise Portion

**Author's Note:**

> I have a horrible history with chapter fics, yet here I am. With a chapter fic. I have something resembling a plan and sense of direction for this story, however, and you can expect lots of nasty angsty preboot/nu52 issues to be worked out through the course of this story. Enjoy. :)
> 
> Thanks to [Kiragecko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiragecko) for the beta! You rock! (Here's the [tumblr link](http://angel-gidget.tumblr.com/post/158893796182/stars-unearth-your-fires-ch1))

Their general proportions were human. But of course, keepers and traverses of the universe were anything but. 

Tim had mentally labeled them as The Gatekeepers, since they were both cryptic and rather obsessed with telling the Justice League and the Titans to physically stay in their own lane—or in this case—their own universe. 

Apparently, that was about to become more difficult than usual? Due to some cosmic aligning of the stars? Again, cryptic, so getting details out them was like trying to strain yogurt through Kevlar weave. Joy.

The interdimensional douches were telling the heroes not to worry because this was a temporary, passing thing. They didn’t need to be alarmed. They were not supposed to remember the moments when realities collided. They might be bombarded with tiny insignificant flashes while the celestial paths crossed. Insignificant memories from the last time something similar had happened.

But then their buggy eyes caught on Tim, and he felt Dick's hand on his shoulder tighten. There was no reason for Red Robin to be singled out among the other heroes. At least, no good reason that came to mind.

But their too-low-pitched-to-be-human voices were still doing that placating gentle thing. Which had the exact opposite of its clearly intended effect. They told him he might remember more than most.

"Oookay. Why?"

"The other heroes fulfilled their duty to the letter. They fully engaged in combat despite the respect  they garnered for their opponents. They did not have sentimental memories afterwards to cling to. They did not try to bridge the worlds afterwards. We must warn you not to try again, Robin."

He nearly corrected them to make it ‘Red Robin,’ but the ghoulish mystery people didn’t seem like they would care much. From what he’d gathered, the last time this cosmic alignment (or collision?) had happened, he had been Robin. And the current Robin was in Gotham, too busy violently cracking skulls in absentia to take offense. 

"I... I have no intention of randomly trying to jailbreak into a separate universe."

Even without human emotions, there was something really skeptical about the silent look they gave him as they turned away.

He shrugged off Dick's hand and ignored the concerned stares from his teammates. If there was reason to be concerned, it was not because of him. Tim knew better than to do something stupid, no matter what those Gatekeepers thought.

\---

He was four days into what was supposed to be a four-week event. (That all the major hero teams of their Earth were supposed to know about, but ignore? Again, non-human logic . Fun.) 

There was a tiny voice of self-disappointment that he hadn't accessed the Crays sooner, but Oracle still hadn't won out against Bruce for making them remote accessible, and as much as it pained him to disappoint Alfred, he and the homunculus were still better apart than together. And really, Tim had his own apartment now and it was cool. A little empty, maybe, but it still had a popcorn machine, so score.

So he had been avoiding the mansion. (Avoid was a strong word, but okay, it worked.) So it had taken him an extra bit of time to be the detective everybody else couldn’t be bothered to be, and check the logs for that stretch of time in which all of the heroes of Earth ostensibly battled an entire universe of other heroes for cosmic survival.

Now that he was actually looking... the records DID look fake. That week from years ago was filled with forgettable patrols and skirmishes--Condiment King? Really?--that could have seriously been any night. It was the logs of the days after that were… actually weird.

Twenty seven unsuccessful attempts to log in and re-write the log history of the week before. On the twenty eighth try, his fourteen year old self had apparently gotten to the typing entry stage but just... left it blank. Left it blank and saved file.

"Cucumber sandwiches, Master Timothy?"

He flinched. Alfred... he had missed Alfred, and he appreciated that the man was trying to make things easier by pretending that he had visited more than he had.

"I... yeah. Thanks, Al."

They were crisp, and cool, and heavier on the mayo than anything Alfred would make for other members of the family. 

He was not going to cry over a sandwich. He wasn’t.

But he would get over his avoidance (and okay, maybe it was an accurate word as much as it was a strong one), and give Alfred the grateful smile he deserved.

He avoided talking by stuffing his face. And wow. He had been using a combination of power bars, caffeine, and sleep deprivation to keep his brain open enough to function, but he was embarrassed to realize that he had underestimated a full stomach’s ability to do have the same effect.

He felt his own pupils dilate when he noticed.

The entry only appeared blank.

It was a series of space bars and tabs. His own code from back when he thought it would be cool to have a code totally to himself. He had thought about sharing it with others. He had almost shown it to Dick about five times and shown it to Cass once, though she didn’t fully understand it. That was when he had decided to abandon it. (He thought he should probably bring it back and show it to Bart. Bart was old enough now that he’d love it.)

But to the message: I-s-o-l-a-t-e-d-e-v-i-c-e-s

Isolated devices. That was… cautious. Like when he wrote it, he worried he’d have someone looking over his shoulder. And… that was fair. Hadn’t he just thought about showing the code to someone else? But had he shown it to Dick, Dick would still understand the implications of old tech and privacy.

Isolated Devices. Devices separate from the Crays and from Oracle’s database. Devices that could be synched to either, but might also theoretically contain details on them—or personal reminders—totally separate from the mainframes. 

And not susceptible to the same memory wipes. 

They didn’t use them anymore, not really. The wrist computers, the chunky tablets. They were secure, yes, but they were borderline analogue, and Oracle eventually shamed the family into giving them up in favor of just fortifying Wayne Tech and Cray firewalls.

Tim felt his adrenaline spike. He had left a reminder for himself on isolated devices from when he was Robin. He had gone to a whole hell of a lot of trouble for a reminder of something he couldn’t remember at all.

He belatedly swallowed the last bite of cucumber and bread. There weren’t that many isolated devices left, much less ones he carried as Robin. 

Thankfully, he was already at the manor.

-

“Okay, woah! No! Damian, knives down! Tim! Tim, STOP. I will bring Bruce and Alfred in here if you do not stop now.”

Threatening to bring in Alfred was a low blow, and Dick knew it. The Bruce threat was clearly for Damian’s benefit, and the little snot-stain at least had the wherewithal to look somewhat contrite about it. Tim was too riled to care.

“He messed with my tech. That I needed for EVIDENCE, Dick.”

“Ttt. Highly unlikely, as I unearthed your archaic toy a year ago, Drake.”

Liar. Tim wanted to scream. 

Damian could break bones and do standard hacking, but he was not observant enough to surpass Dick, Bruce, and Alfred (who must have dusted that same spot every day) and simply find the catch in Tim’s custom window frame. 

More likely, he had cheated and recruited the damn dog.

“It’s a resurrected case. I needed my personal notes. Notes that were lost the moment you hooked up my mini to the Crays to spy on me."

He waited for Dick to point out that there should be backups. That Tim's notes should have been preserved by Cray security. That would have then prompted Tim to point out how very wrong it was that the backups didn't happen. That something was very wrong with the mainframe files from that entire week.

But Dick sighed instead, and Tim could see him mentally listing through ways to convince Tim to placate Damian.

Screw. That.

He grabbed his (stupid, unnecessary) overnight bag on the way out.


	2. Nostalgia Ruins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim & Company unearth some _clues._

"Wait, dude. Scrappy Doo hacked your diary?"

"It wasn't a diary, Kon. But, kinda."

"A lockable device on which you record your private thoughts you share with no one? Soundslikeadiary,man. Youshouldembraceit."

"I could repeat lectures verbatim from Diana about refusing to be shamed for traditionally feminine things that are actually emotionally reinforcing, but I think I'll spare you since you're not fooling anybody."

He could have come alone, but he had returned their texts on a whim, and when they had learned he was going to scavenge their old HQ at Happy Harbor... well, there was no stopping the remnant of Young Justice otherwise known as his best friends.

"It was more like a smartwatch jam packed with ridiculous hardware and old ipod levels of memory that I had filled with work reminders, but whatever."

Cassie and Bart had a point. But the truth was, the closest thing he really had to a diary was the dozens of hand-written letters he had written essentially screaming at his father. Letters he had tossed in the fire before he could be tempted to actually leave them where the (now dead, now lost) man could find them.

But some things remained too raw to share.

"Hey," Cassie was the first to touch her toe down on the threshold (Normally, Bart would beat her, but he had allowed himself to be a bit distracted, fully zipping around a couple laps to check out external changes).

Cassie started entering the old security codes without a hitch. She was not even thinking about it, and it gave Tim a tiny surprising warm fuzzy tingle in the chest, "Damian didn't use anything in it against you, did he? Trying to dig up crap on--"

Tim allowed himself a chuckle, "No. Assuming he did manage to read any of my entries, I would have paid money to watch him try to figure out what any of it meant."

"Oooh," Bart zipped back, and darned if he wasn’t talking faster and faster, allowing his own nostalgic excitement to kick in, "Did you write it in a code?"

"Sort of."

Kon was floating by the graffiti wall. It didn’t matter how many times they cleaned it, "Hanson Sucks" would always reappear as if by magic. Tim used to suspect Bart solely, but looking back, (and looking at Kon's face now) he suspected a little differently. 

The guy's grin has a bit of the ol' Kid when he glanced over his shoulder, "You didn't just write it in code, you wrote it in SLANG, didn't you. Yes, you did."

Tim snorted. But denied nothing. There was no point.

"Bet it was like 90% rap references."

"Ooh, don't underestimate Tim's eclectic-ness, Bart. There was no doubt a healthy dose of Enya lyrics entwined in there."

Bart's nose scrunched, "Enya? Seriously, Tim?"

"Hey," Cassie interjected, "I like Enya."

"You also like country music and boy bands dangerously similar to Hanson. It's okay, Cass. Weloveyouanyway."

The rules for Gotham and his team had always been different. While clever hiding spaces had been a practically intellectual game in his home city, sometimes the trick to hiding something in YJ HQ was to just place it somewhere really dumb.

“The girl’s locker room, Rob? Really?”

“You never looked for any of my toys here, so clearly, it worked.”

The locker combination was Steph’s birthday. Something his teammates had no reason to know and something Batman and Nightwing might overlook. Or at least, they would have overlooked it back then. Maybe he should change it. Did it matter? Would he ever have cause to use this thing again? It was worth thinking about, but not something for just yet.

The lock released with an obnoxious clack and the door swung open with a creak. There were some things in his life that Tim kept meticulously clean, but no locker had ever been on the list. His crumpled extra Robin uniform tumbled out along with a collection of scratched CD’s, multi-sided dice, hand-drawn diagrams of team formations covered over by Bart’s doodling, and a cracked baseball bat.

At least his uniform had been through the wash before he stuffed it in there. Small favors from his former self. Tim carefully unrolled the Kevlar cape, tumbling his old wrist computer into his palm.

He would need to replace the battery. Specifically, remove the battery, and carefully charge it, then place it back into the device. He was not going to risk synching the thing—even to the old YJ mainframe—by plugging it into the computer directly. Maybe he was being paranoid. Hm. Not the worst thing to be.

“So…” Kon interrupted, “You gonna tell us what’s up?”

His first—heh—impulse was to be cryptic, but he swallowed it down. These were his friends.

“I was singled out by those Gatekeepers. I want to know why. When I checked the dates, I realized all of our computer records were compromised. I think… I think a more personal record might have escaped their notice.”

A moment of silence. He would have enjoyed the rarity of quiet in the old YJ cave of all things, but they were looking at him with a high-alert concern that was on the edge of tipping into horror.

“Woah. The bat-computers were compromised? Holy Hera, Tim.”

“DoyouthinkitwastheGatekeepers? You do. You totallythinkitwastheGatekeepers.”

Tim nodded, “Yeah. I do.”

“So what, man? You think they waved their triple-joined finger and just…?” Kon waved his own hand.

“Erased a week—maybe more—of events that happened while our reality was colliding with something outside of our own multiverse. And in a room with you, the Flashes, Booster Gold, and Guy Gardner; the person they expected to cause trouble was me.”

“And you can’t remember because they probably also erased our memories.” Cassie inferred.

Kon nodded until Tim’s earlier comment sank home, “Hey wait, whattaya mean ‘with me’?”

Bart giggled, “Oh, as if you don’t remember what you were like back then.”

Kon sighed as Bart and then Cassie joined in on ruffling his hair. They had to be fast. And reach up on their tip toes to do it. But Kon let them for a good half of a second.

“Ok. Point taken.”

The wait for the charger to hit green felt like an eternity. Plenty of time for the ambiance of the old cave to slip from nostalgia to haunting. Bart had opened up an entire closet of junk—chemicals, paint, mechanical insects—that he had apparently collected with Greta. Kon had dusted off Anita’s old masseuse table, only to find that no one was really in the mood to hop on it. Cassie found an old set of brass knuckles that belonged to Slo-bo, but quietly set them down when she noticed their discoloration was due to dried blood.

Nobody messed with the dusty arrows kept in hopeful little spaces. Nobody looked at the archer’s targets. At least, no one looked when others were looking.

Tim sighed and watched as Cassie floated around, fidgeting. He remembered how hard she had clung to the idea of Cissie returning to the hero life, terrified that her best friend would grow distant as a result. Tim had… been more optimistic. At the time.

He knew where their old friends were. He knew Greta Hayes was a freshman in college now. That they girl they had once called Secret had impressed the entire faculty of St. Elias with her ability to catch up and surpass academic basics. He knew that while she excelled in her math and science classes, she enjoyed the chaos and the friendships she found in her drama electives. He knew because her teachers kept good notes that were easy to hack.

He knew Anita took odd jobs to support the two tiny children that were her de-aged parents. She would put on her old Empress costume on occasion, when crime had the gaul to come to her doorstep, but lived quietly in Louisiana for the most part. Supergirl had been the last hero to come into contact with her, and told him all about it.

None of them had really had the chance to feel close to Ray, but Tim knew that didn’t make them special. Ray Terrill’s profile with the Justice League displayed a new team every year. He had run with reserve units, the JSA, Freedom Fighters, and more.

Then there was Cissie, Arrowette, the girl who took them by all by surprise once every few months as her face appeared on a cereal box, in an energy drink commercial, or on a motivational poster in a sporting goods store. Because nothing sold that stuff better than an Olympic archer who had looks as well as accuracy. 

It wasn't a painful thing for Tim personally. Hell, there had been a time when he thought he was headed for a similar path, a time when he thought retirement for himself was a strong possibility, just a few years away. But he knew better now. And he knew that Bart always bought things with her name or her face on them, but didn't actually look at them. And that when Cassie heard her voice blaring from the TV, she would stare mournfully at an old number in her phone before putting it away unused. As much as they would wish otherwise, Cissie King-Jones had drifted away from them. 

Not that Tim didn’t also fit the drifter profile to an extent. The thought hit him hard. He hadn’t been to the Tower in over a two months, but like a dog with a bone, the Titans had refused to let him stay out of touch. Even when Dick had the bright idea of sending Damian to the tower, to try to get him to interact with ‘younger’ heroes—because apparently Dick could’t be bothered to remember that he was sending an eleven year old to socialize with a crew that no longer possessed a member under the age of sixteen—his friends had reached out, insisting that Red Robin was the only Robin on their roster.

It was humbling, and it put a scratch in this throat and a watery heat behind his eyes that—

BEEP!

Charging complete.

Bart zipped toward the outlet, and hopped on his toes while waiting for Tim to unplug the device. He felt Conner and Cassie join in hovering behind him as he began to skim through the files. There was only one that matched what they were looking for, with its simple text repeated in the space-tab code.

R E M I N D E R S  
\- Dig up 8th grade time capsule  
\- Go 2 fashion show @ Hollywood Mall. Compare/Contrast costume  
\- Be outside July 4th  
\- Go 2 most romantic city on July 15th

“That’s it?” blurted Kon and Bart at once.

“Fashion show?” Cassie scratched her head.

Tim sighed, “I was watching out for key word triggers. I think.”

Bart frowned, “Like, if you actually said anything close to what you meant, you were worried the Gatekeepers or whoever would notice and erase everything like they did with the Batcomputer?”

Tim nodded, “The ‘reminders’ are literally reminders. Straightforward intel would be too dangerous.”

“‘Cause God forbid your lil’ bitty bat-self actually tell your future self what was going on.” Kon huffed impatiently.

Cassie elbowed him in the ribs.

Kon hissed. “Sorry! Too dangerous. I get it.”

Cassie raised her brows and let it go. “So, what are you going to do?”

Tim shrugged, “Do what they tell me to and hope they help me remember, I guess.”

Bart looked up from his phone, “Better hope the ‘reminders’ don’t have to go in order, Tim.”

Tim winced, “Why?”

Cassie looked over Bart’s shoulder at his screen, “Because the only major summer fashion demonstration in California hits the runway in about 12 hours. Woah.”

Tim powered down the wrist tech. He didn’t like the idea of going out of order, but only two of the reminders had actual dates attached. At least he had opened the file right before July. Small favors.

“Fine. Mall first. Grab some food and rest and meet back with me in—“

“Only if you do,” Cassie’s eyes were narrowed.

“Yeah, man. No caffeinated all-nighters.”

“Kon and I will tuckyouinifwehaveto.”

Tim snorted, “Fine.

It messed with his plans, but if he was being honest, Cass was in town, and Steph had mentioned to Dick in the cave that she was done with her freshman comp essay. Red Robin wasn’t strictly necessary when Blackbat and Batgirl were around to help out.

He did his best to take it as the impromptu bit of fortune it was.

He didn’t let it hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ask that any fashion nerds reading this forgive me for my fake fashion week plot device. Lets just say the DCU has extra fashion weeks bc magic and leave it at that.


	3. Fine Fresh Fierce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim & Co. investigate the first reminder and get a lead on the last one. Bets are resolved, and food proves to be a blessing yet again.

“Dude. You know you just paid wicked money for good seats to the show right? So why are we not in those four front row seats with Wayne’s name on ‘em?”

“Because it doesn’t feel right, Kon.”

It did, but it didn’t. Fashion show. He had been so sure at the time that the term wasn’t code for anything. But as he watched the snappily-dressed crowd converge on the runway waiting for the lights to dim, he just got the feeling that actually attending the official show wasn’t quite what his younger self had in mind.

“So… what _does_ feel right?” Bart asked, looking up from his e-reader. Cyborg had customized the processing power to keep up with Kid Flash’s speed, and so far, it was doing wonders for creating the public illusion that Bart was a patient person. So long as no one looked too closely at how quickly his finger tapped from page to page. 

Even if Bart had paused for half a second, Tim wouldn’t have been able to read it. Bart had studied Dutch last week, and was currently reading about some variety of European alternative rock in its native language.

“I don’t know,” Tim sighed, “Just… walk with me.”

They did. They were amazingly patient with him, dodging and weaving through the crowds. Kon and Bart chuckled at a cheesy poster for running shoes that seemed to appear after every third store.  Cassie allowed herself to admire a couple dresses in their respective windows—he had seen her in a dress exactly once but apparently she liked to look at them a lot? Unclear. She lingered longer over a pair of hot pink boxing gloves in a sportswear display. Future Christmas present. He made a note.

“So, not that this isn’t kind of a novelty for us,” Kon interjected, “Because you know we never do normal things, but… is there anything for us to check out here that we couldn’t have checked out in ‘Frisco? Or Gotham? Which would both be less crowded by now?”

Tim sighed.

There was something different about the Beverly Hills Mall’s ambience. He just couldn’t put his finger on it. The posters were the same stupid posters in shopping centers back in Gotham. The music was the same blaring music. The people… the people.

“The girls.”

“Hah, very funny.” Cassie rolled her eyes.

Bart chuckled.

“What about them?” Kon blurted, taking his statement seriously.

Tim’s gaze latched onto a circle of three girls—late teens to early twenties—chatting loudly with each other as they dug into their food court lunches.  He pulled out his phone and discreetly snapped a handful of pictures.

“Wait. You’re serious?” Cassie blinked.

“Bart, pick a topic and start talking. Low voice. We’ll take the open table close to them and keep it casual. I need audio.”

Cassie grimaced, “Oh my god, you _are_ serious.”

Bart shrugged and proceeded to perfunctorily lecture on Darwinian evolution as a growing topic for romanticization in symphonic metal music. It actually struck Tim as vaguely interesting, and he made a note to ask Bart to repeat his spiel when he was better able to pay attention.

For the moment, he leaned back and let the cadence of the girl’s voices wash over him. They were talking about the fashion show, its pluses and pretentiousness, because their friend Valerie was clearly more talented than those ‘professionals’ as she actually designed things that were fun to wear. That somehow evolved into a discussion on nail polish remover as a multi-purpose solution, and really—while the nail polish thing might prove useful—none of it really mattered.

There was a common speech pattern. Not accent so much as slight dialect. Word choice interspersed with the casual pop of Mindy’s bubblegum.  For the first time, it wasn’t something about the milieu that was the same; it was something about it that was familiar.

Yet Tim couldn’t remember for the life of him where he had heard it before.

_“Go 2 fashion show @ Hollywood Mall. Compare/Contrast costume.”_

West coast street fashion was inherently different. While not terribly fashion-conscious in his own right, Tim had been exposed to nearly all walks of life, and their clothes, in Gotham.  The destitute in patched up hoodies, the wealthy in designer suits, the middle-class in semi-ironic polo shirts. But it was all Gotham. Even the goths and hair-dyed punks had a certain aesthetic that fit to a mold.

The California mall had different molds. Mindy’s glittery tattoo-style tights under her faded denim skirt, and Raquel’s bangly earrings jangling against the careful color palette of the beads in her cornrows had a certain feeling to it that was more theatrical than anything Tim ran into outside of his costumed life.

And Sylvia’s bright yellow jacket demanded that he stare at it. He didn’t know why.

“… I love your fashion sense!”

Tim’s head snapped around, “What?”

“Is that what you were planning on saying to them?” Bart had an eyebrow raised, “‘Cause you’ve been kinda badly hiding that you’re looking at them for the last 43 seconds and even with me providing conversational cover, they were going to notice. Soon.”

While Bart appeared merely curious, Kon and Cassie had their patented looks of concern on their faces once more.

Tim tapped his phone to stop the audio recording.

“I’m done. I’m good. Let’s go.”

——

“So,” Bart called out while skateboarding into a loop in the gym-obstacle course hybrid of Titan’s Tower, “What do we do when we hit up Paris?”

“What?” Tim blinked, pulling out one earbud. 

He hadn’t been playing the audio clip of the girl’s voices on repeat very loudly, so he had heard the question just fine. He just wasn’t on the same page, exactly.

“It was in your notes,” Kon explained from the corner where he was spotting for Cassie’s weight-lifting. “Go to the most romantic city?”

Tim snorted, “Paris is NOT the most romantic city. Nowhere close.”

Cassie grunted from beneath her gym record of 74 tons—it was frustrating for her, he knew, because she’d stopped a passenger jet once. Theoretically, she should have been able to press twice that without shredding her muscles, but apparently even superheroes had a kick-in-the-pants relationship with adrenaline that wasn’t easily replicated with a machine.

“Nnhh… okay then—guh—We’ll bite. Why? Baguettes not on your diet?”

Tim lifted an eyebrow. 

“Paris is filled with street gangs who know my face, and there’s nothing wrong with my diet.”

He wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t _trying_ to lose muscle-mass. It was just an unfortunate side-effect of focusing his grocery list on immunity boosters instead of protein or comfort food. Mackerel and ginger and salads did good things for his lack of spleen, but didn’t help him look ripped. 

At once, Bart was in his face with a cold slice of leftover pizza.

“OkayTim. Every time you say something drenched in the waters of DeNile, youhavetotakeabite.”

He wasn’t in de—ooh anchovies on extra cheese. It wasn’t like he couldn’t use the protein. And cold or not, it smelled good. He took a bite.

“Good boy.”

“Screw you.”

Bart cackled and ate the rest of the slice himself. Jerk.

He zipped away and the clattering of pots and pans a level away signaled that Bart had started the process of cooking dinner for the evening. Tim mentally rescinded his jerk comment.

“So Rob,” Kon’s use of his old nick name snapped his attention back, “What _is_ the most romantic city then?

Tim shrugged, “Not Paris.”

“Well, nnnngh, that’s helpful.” Cassie set down her weights, and reached out a hand. Kon wordlessly handed her a water bottle emblazoned with a W.

Kon tapped a finger against his chin.

“Is it Moscow?”

Tim frowned, “You think the most romantic city is Moscow?”

“Uh, no,” Kon scratched the back of his head, “I think you might think that Moscow is the most romantic city because you and Tam Fox had kind of a love nest going on there…? Didn’t you?” His eyes flashed quickly to Cassie, as though unsure if Tim would want to talk about it in front of her.  Tim rolled his eyes.

“We had adjoining hotel rooms that had good room service. Hardly the mark of ultimate romance, Kon.”

Cassie smirked, “The Tower is subscribed to the Gotham Gazette.”

Oh. Oooooh. Tim winced. Knowing his friends watched the news to keep an eye out for his exploits as Red Robin was one thing. Knowing that they were reading all the gossip columns on Timothy Drake-Wayne was another.

“This does not leave the Tower, but if you wanna know, I’ll tell you.”

“Please.” They chorused. And wow, but things must have been dull around San Fran if they were all that starved for proverbial bread from the rumor mill. Tim sighed.

“The only way in which we took advantage of those adjoining hotel rooms was by having breakfast together in our pajamas. Yes, I was flirting. And yeah, I really, really enjoyed it.”

Both Kon and Cassie had small, tight smiles on their faces. They were waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because, well, they knew him. Tim pretended that he didn’t see Kon reach behind his back, handing Cassie a twenty dollar bill. He was too tired to ask about the specifics of the bets anymore.

“But it’s all irrelevant now as I have since managed to royally piss off Tam, and have just barely earned enough forgiveness that we can work together in a civil manner. It’s over…”

Kon snatched the twenty back.

“… No matter what I want.”

Cassie reached behind her again, claiming final victory on the crumpled bill.

“Hera, that’s rough. Sorry, Tim.” 

At least Cassie _sounded_ sincere. And at least the value of his personal woes had risen with inflation. Bets about his mask had only been worth ten bucks back in the day.

“Grub’s up!,” Bart’s shout came from the kitchen, “And Ikindabrokethemicrowave, so get it while it’s hot!”

———

Tim wasn’t sure why he had been so suspicious of ‘peppered lamb lasagna’. He should have learned to trust Bart by now. The sting of spice and rosemary with cheese lingered on his tongue as he slouched with the group—and their full stomaches—on the giant couch in front of the 70’’ TV.

They had it set to Gotham news. Which was boring, seeing as Tim helped make the news by putting Riddler back into Arkham, so he already knew it all. But apparently, boring news was the point, because boring news was easy to talk over. 

Kon was the first to breach the white noise.

“So you never did answer the question.”

“Ugh,”  Tim pinched the bridge of his nose.

“What question?” barked Gar from his basset hound form. He was snuggled up next to Raven, who had similarly snapped out of her private world to pay attention.

“For four hundred points,” Bart mock-intoned, “What is the most romantic city in the world. Andon’tsayParis. SayingParisstartsawholeTHING.”

“New York?” Gar mumbled, sliding back to his human self.

“Ain’t got nothing on Honolulu.” Kon rejoined.

“I’d say Themyscira,” Cassie enunciated around a last bite of lasagna, “But you can only take girlfriends there, not boyfriends. So…”

“Funny thing is, I know the absolutemostperfectcity,” Bart muttered, grabbing the remote and flipping through channels, “But it hasn’t been founded yet. Welcome to thespeedsterlife.”

Raven’s voice managed to seep through the white noise and the commentary, causing everything else to go silent.

“You _know_ the answer, Timothy. You just need a moment to _breathe_ and _think._ ”

She stepped away from Gar to kneel in front of him, placing a hand at his temple. Tim shivered. 

He wasn’t inherently comfortable with magic, but he refused to shut it out the way Bruce did. Refused to let that twinge in his gut make him shut people in his life out. He might not ever be as relaxed in Raven’s presence as Dick could be—as Dick pretended to be?—but as much as he could consciously open himself up to someone who had fought and bled with him, he would.

So he leaned back, and breathed out…

“Venice.”

He came out of the meditative moment to find everyone staring at him. It was getting kind of old. His friends seriously needed some more hobbies. Kon finally restarted the discussion.

“Y’know? Not bad. Venice is… a good choice.”

“Shoddy infrastructure, though.” Bart sighed.

“Pretty sure that’s a huge part of the charm, kiddo.” Gar chuckled.

“Seriously. Why?” Bart tilted his head.

Tim shrugged, “Venice has gondolas.”

Cassie nodded, “That it does. Guess that’s pretty romantic.”

Tim continued, “Gondolas are the perfect date activity. Historical romantic tradition. Often a new experience for both parties. A mix of public space to create a feeling of safety, but enough privacy to… um. Make out. If you want to.”

How did he know that? That wasn’t… he couldn’t ever remember setting foot in Venice. Or a gondola. But now that he was stopping to _breathe_ and _think_ —thank you, Raven—it made perfect sense. Huh.

His hooded empath of a teammate gave him a gentle smile before returning to her corner of the couch once more.

“I’m just saying that Venice will have _collapsed_ by the time I’m even born,” Bart objected.

“You are so missing the point, my man.” Kon retorted.

Tim let their squabbling wash over him like a blanket. The last several times he had come to the tower, he had simply fallen asleep on the couch. It was always warmer there than in his room, and it didn’t hurt that he was usually in someone’s company. He had every intention of sleeping there again. But until then… he rose and headed for the kitchen.

By his calculations, there was one piece of lasagna left.

 


	4. Buried Treasures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim has to look up an old friend or two before he can dig up his (hopefully existent) clue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry for the lateness of this chapter. It's ended up becoming my longest one yet. Thank you so much for the amazing reviews! While there is sadly no Core Four in this chapter (Bart tried to elbow his way in, he really did), they will make more appearances soon. It's time for Tim to reconnect with a few non-caped companions.
> 
> My lovely beta Kiragecko took a much-deserved break this week, so all mistakes are 100% me. Sorry if I missed anything!

Tim had wracked his brain for three straight hours trying to discern what “8th grade time capsule” might be code for, only to discern that—once again—it wasn’t code for anything. Which meant he had a choice to make. He could break his (semi-ironic but totally serious) pinky-swear to his 8th grade bff and open the thing without him, or he could suck it up and call his oldest civilian friend, Sebastian Ives.

He and Ives were still friends. He was pretty sure. Mostly. At least, the guy hadn’t taken it too personally the last time Tim had visited out of the blue without speaking to him for over a year. 

If anything, Ives had been shocked that Tim wanted to hang with him when he was in the middle of cancer treatment, as so many other friends had flaked out when things got too intense. Tim had just been grateful to have warning, for once, that one of his friends might die. He wasn’t usually so lucky, though he didn’t know how to tell Ives that without telling him way too much.

Two rings. Three. And then—

“Does my caller ID deceive me, or is this richest and dorkiest of my foul weather friends?”

“Don’t you mean fair-weather friends, Ives?”

“No, no, I don’t. You should brush up on your Shakespeare. And cheap surfer-stoner productions in the park don’t count, by the way,” 

There were voices in the background, and music too. If anything, Tim would have sworn Ives was in the middle of a… club? 

Ives continued, “I do mean foul-weather. That’s what you call people who stick with you when life is sucking but unexpectedly ditch you when it’s time to party. Case in point: I’m throwing a party and you’re not here. Because you never pick up your damn phone, you ass.”

Oh. OH! “Congratulations on your remission, man.”

He could hear the smile through the phone. It wasn’t the same as being totally forgiven, but Ives wasn’t the sort of person who could be happy and hold a grudge at the same time.

“Thanks. It’s my one-month anniversary of the big NED. Looks like for the time being, I’ve rolled a twenty on breathing. It’s worth celebrating.”

Smooth opening. Here we go. 

“Feel like doing a more personal celebration too? Maybe something nostalgic? Like digging up our time capsule from the 8th grade? I’ll buy the pizza.”

“Oh, man. Yes. You better, Prince Midas. Hold up.”

He was distracted, clearly talking to somebody else at the party. Tim took a moment. It was just as well that he’d caught Ives when he was distracted. The guy didn’t do parties much. Introvert that he was, they took a lot out of him, including his tendency to say no to things. Even before he’d been sick. Tim didn’t have many childhood friends, but they were bookish gamer geeks, the lot of them. 

Ives voice came back on the line.

“I got a friend who wants to come with. The dude’s curious about everything, a real Nancy Drew. Wants to know about my nerdy little 8th grade self. I told him the biggest difference was that I was little and in the 8th grade, but he’s bored and I promised to include him in more stuff.”

“That’s cool. Saturday, noon?”

“That’s high noon to you, buckaroo. And yes.”

——-

He’d outgrown his best nerd shirts. 

Tim didn’t even know when it had happened. It wasn’t that they didn’t fit him through the arms and chest—he was wiry enough that they did—but he’d gotten so long in the torso, that the edges of his shirts rose up obnoxiously from the waist of his jeans, constantly baring strips of skin.

When this had happened to Cassie, she’d embraced it and pulled off the sexy belly-shirt like a pro. Tim… couldn’t do that. Or rather, he couldn't do that without pulling out a _persona._

Ives had an meet-up with Tim Drake, not Mr. Sarcastic. So belly nerd shirts were a no-go.

He’d yanked out what appeared to be his least-expensive hoodie and Alfred-purchased designer jeans, and hoped for the best. This was supposed to be about nostalgia for Ives, though Tim had mixed hopes.

What would be worse? Finding nothing but exactly what they had buried years ago, and pretending to laugh with his friend while secretly pulling out his hair over a dead end of evidence? Or finding the evidence he needed in its place, but then having to somehow cover for the oddness of whatever they found by lying to Ives again? 

It had been a while since he’d had to lie to someone he loved, and Tim wanted to keep it that way. (And lies of omission didn’t count. Especially to Bruce. And to Dick. And to whomever else he’d been lying to by means of omission lately.)

“Best not to overthink it,” Tim muttered to himself. He had been ten minutes early to the discolored tree that had been the site of his and Ives’ 8th grade paint-ball fight. Also, the site of their _only_ paintball fight, because apparently nobody had told Ives that there tended to be bruises from such a thing.

If Ives was anything like his old self, he’d be five minutes early, and… yup.

Tim smiled and waved as Ives’ old Chevy pulled into the park’s lot. He was about to say hello, when a second person slid out from the car, following after Ives with a growing Cheshire grin on his face.

Tim gasped, “F@*#$ing hell.”

Bernard Dowd.

Ives new Nancy Drew pal was Bernard. Fragging. Dowd. The nosey-est (and therefore worst possible) person to have on a dig that might or might not yield incriminating signs of inter-dimensional antics. 

“Why Timbo! With a greeting like that, one would almost think you weren’t pleased to see me.” Bernard bumped the car door closed with his hip as he balanced a brand new shovel on one shoulder.

Ives blinked, “You two know each other?”

Tim scratched his head, “ _You_ two know each other?”

“As I’ve told you both,” Bernard set the shovel down by the largest tree root, “I know everyone who’s anyone.”

As if to prove the solidity of his nonchalance, Bernard took his best guess as to which patch of dirt housed the capsule, and made a sweeping ‘you first’ motion with his arm at Tim and Ives.

Tim pulled out Alfred’s trusty gardening hoe, and braced himself as Bernard began to snicker. Because he’d brought a hoe. Because, for all his eloquence, Bernard was emotionally twelve. Ives stared at them both like they had doubled their number of arms and limbs and turned green.

Tim felt his eyes narrow in suspicion in Bernard’s direction, “You knew I’d be here.”

Bernard pulled back his laughter into a finely-controlled smirk, “When dear ol’ Sebastian told me he had an eccentrically neglectful, ridiculously rich childhood compadre named Tim… well, I did the math. But I waited for a face-to-face to be sure,” He winked, “It's more fun that way.”

Tim purposefully and carefully ignored that entire description of himself as he stared incredulously at Ives.

“You actually let him call you Sebastian? Him?”

“It was the only way to get him to stop calling me ‘St. Ives’ along with several other unholy variations of my surname,” Ives took a deep breath and pitched his own shovel into the dirt, “Now lets get this show on the road.”

Once the digging began, it was a simple matter to let Bernard dominate the conversation, explaining to Ives that he and Tim had gone to the aptly-named Grieve High for a semester together. Until the Aquista gang war had come to their front door step.

Tim’s mind remained vaguely on Bernard’s story, but mostly on the ground they were unearthing. There was a reason Bernard had been able to see the digging spot. It was especially uneven compared to its surroundings, overgrown with grass that was clearly seeded, a slightly different color than what was surrounding it.

Which was suspicious, considering Tim and Ives hadn’t laid down any grass seed when they were kids. Not that someone responsible for the park couldn’t have laid something down, but it didn’t look quite right. It had been what? Six? Seven years since he and Ives had buried the thing? It should have blended with the rest of the milieu perfectly. But it didn’t. Not quite. As though it had been dug up again at least once in the interim. 

“Earth to Timinator,” Ives poked him in the forehead, “Is it true?” 

“Is what true?”

Ives looked like he wanted to smack Tim with his shovel and Bernard looked… oddly serious.

“Did Bernard’s dream girl turn into a super villain and try to kidnap you?”

And this was why he didn’t want Bernard here. There was the guy’s ongoing conspiracy theory habit, and then there was the fact that he had actually seen way too much.

“No,” Tim heard Bernard begin to protest, but he continued, “Darla didn’t try to kidnap me. She tried to make me into her personal moral compass and I told her where to get off.”

Bernard stared, “You what??? But she—you—she dismantled my car! She had these… these…”

Ives jumped in, “Phenomenal cosmic powers?”

“Yes,” Bernard continued, “And you just told her to go jump off a cliff? And got away with it? What the hell, Timothy!”

Tim blinked. He had forgotten about that. When Darla Aquista had died and returned from the dead with dark magic powers via one of Robin’s enemies, she had sought out her friend Tim Drake out for “advice.” Tim had forgotten that she had gone to Bernard first. He had never bothered to call Bernard and let the guy know he was okay. For all Bernard had known, he’d sent Tim’s untimely demise to his door when he told Darla where to find their former classmate.

Tim put the shovel down for a moment.

“I’m sorry I scared you, Bernard. I meant—I meant that if Darla wanted to be a hero, and she did, she couldn’t rely on me to tell her right from wrong and hold her to it. Heroes take responsibility for their actions. She gets that now. She went off with a superhero team called Shadowpact. She was okay.”

“And you?” Bernard exhaled.

Tim grinned.

“I’m always okay.”

Neither of his friends looked like they believed him.

Ives returned to digging, “See this is why you should call me more often,” He grunted as his shovel finally struck metal, “Your life gets really, really weird without me. Dating undead superheroes, Tim? Really? Oy vey.”

“We didn’t… never mind.”

He could have pulled the chest from the remainder of the hole without grunting, but watching Ives and Bernard wheeze and strain from the physical activity set a good bar for Timothy Drake Wayne’s level of sluggishness. So he panted along with them.

“Makes..nnghhh… a lot of sense in hind sight, though.” Ives breathed.

“What does?”

“Cancer probably doesn’t look like so bad of a boss battle after you’ve seen the fire and brimstone.”

“I…” He could be honest about this much. He could. “It made me glad for the people who are alive. However long they’re alive. Y’know?”

Ives gave him the most earnest smile Tim had seen all day.

“Okay, geeks! And Tim, for all your previous disguise, I see now that you are—in fact—a geek. It’s time to unbox this baby.” Bernard crowed.

Their “time capsule” was less a futuristic tube and more pirate-chest themed lockable luggage from the nearest department store. It had space for stuff, and it looked cool. Even as an adult, Tim felt he could stand by that choice.

Three seconds to blow off the dust. Forty-two to smash the lock. (He and Ives could both remember Tim swearing when they were kids that he would remember the combination, but well, he hadn’t.)

“A moment of silence for the defunct game boy who’s grave we have disturbed.” Ives mock-solemnly intoned, as he pulled out the old system preserved in plastic.

Tim blinked, “You buried your game boy? You loved that thing.”

“Exactly,” Ives poked him in the chest, “I was committed to this project. Unlike you.”

Tim frowned. 

“I was too committed. Behold,” he lifted a green mud-crusted travesty that had not aged well, “Rusty the water pistol. Never got in a water gun fight without him. And look! My pog collection.”

“You mean _my_ pog collection.”

Tim shrugged, “ _Our_ pog collection.”

“You are both the nerdiest nerds who ever nerded in the eighth grade. I don’t know why I expected differently.” Bernard sighed.

“I did warn you, buddy.” Ives laughed.

Bernard muttered something unintelligible, but it set Ives off on a lecture about the impact of popular culture. Tim took it as a much-needed distraction.

It wouldn't have done Tim any good to have remembered the lock combination anyway. The lock wasn’t as old as it should have been. And while the capsule was filled with mementos from younger years, there were two small evidence bags at the bottom that were Batman standard issue.

They were hair samples. 

Easily researched. Easily pocketed.

Tim breathed a sigh of relief as he quietly slipped them into the back of his jeans.

That had… not gone nearly as badly as he anticipated. He reminded himself that it wasn’t quite over yet. After all, he owed Ives pizza.

Ives and Bernard were still arguing amicably. 

One of the reasons Ives never had too many friends as a kid was because most people couldn’t understand that the guy’s favorite form of conversation was a heated debate. When he felt like conversing at all outside of Wizards and Warlocks.

Bernard… well, Bernard just decided when someone was his friend and treated any attempts to escape his friendship as an amusing joke. It worked for him. But he also had a tendency to look down his nose at people who fit too neatly into a category, and Ives tended to wear his categories loud and proud. So it was… curious.

“So, how _did_ you guys meet?”

Ives and Bernard paused and then grinned in unison.

“Elizabeth Spillgrave.”

Who? It took Tim a moment. Right. 

Elizabeth Spillgrave. Real name: Jodie Weise. Internationally recognized alien conspiracy theorist, and one of Ives favorite authors. Or least favorite, depending how one looked at it. He always holed up in his room on the day one of her books released, reading voraciously. He would spend the next two weeks debunking her entire book paragraph by paragraph. Sometimes with charts if he was feeling particularly zealous and homework wasn’t challenging him enough.

Tim blinked, “And you became friends over this?”

It didn’t seem possible. Because while Ives was the sort to spend two weeks disproving the sort of theories that were the woman’s bread and butter, Bernard was just the sort to spend the same amount of time proving it. Or perhaps editing how such events would be possible, turning each paragraph into a spring board for his own theories. He would stop short of making charts, though. Bernard thought excessive chart-making was for nerds.

Ives shrugged, “We were both late to her book signing last year, and had to team up on scalping tickets to get into the VIP meet and greet.”

“We shared mutual disappointment that she could but spare us two minutes each, even after all that hassle.” Bernard sighed.

Ives rolled his eyes, “And then he started going on about his idea that the UFO’s mentioned in her last book might be Kryptonian. From a hundred years ago.”

“Magic is a thing, Sebastian.”

“They’re aliens, Bernard. Superman is vulnerable to magic. He’s not going to carry around something that could kill him.”

“Humans do it all the time.”

They continued on as they packed up their tools and piled into Ives’ car. Tim didn’t get a word in edge-wise to ask where they were going, but he quickly recognized the route Ives was taking. Pizza Planet, appropriately enough.

He pulled the clear evidence bags from his pocket to glance at them once more.

One contained extremely short snips of dirty blond hair. The other contained a single jet-black lock that looked like it had been curled around someone’s finger before getting cut. 

Both sets were sufficient for a DNA database search.

Tim sat back in his seat. 

First pizza, then catching up with the two civilian friends who were still speaking to him, maybe some nostalgic passing around of ye olde Game Boy, and then…

_Answers._


End file.
